30 September 2016

The Sanctification of Social Conformity: Offering Incense to Caesar and Christian Second-Class Citizenship (Part 2 of 2)

Our criticism of the system is on the one hand an example of
shining light in the darkness but primarily our concern is to expose the nature
of the system and thus reveal the apostate nature of Christendom which has
constructed this system and is still heavily invested in it. As has been said
before, lost people are going to engage in such behaviour. It's no great shock.
But when professing Christians do it, then it needs to be called out and
exposed. This criticism needs to be understood as not anti-state or political. At
worst the result of criticism and exposure should be non-participation... which admittedly can threaten the system and
the world will certainly find it offensive and accuse us of being 'bad
citizens'. But considering that Christians will only ever be a small minority
in any given social system, there is no real or existential threat. The state
may not view it that way, but it is nevertheless true.

Christians can even take subsidies (like tax credits or
medical assistance) from the state although they shouldn't have to. The North
American Church and its worship of money has greatly hindered its ability to
function and in the name of bogus and spurious 'stewardship' most Churches
actually exercise wanton disregard for the spirit of God's commands with regard
to money and all too often the literal commands as well. In many cases
Christians are directly involved with the institutions that are oppressing the
poor and then begrudge them when the state extends them financial aid. This
isn't some kind of altruism on the part of the state. It is socio-political
calculus. If you completely break the poor and decimate the lower classes the
Establishment's profits will be lost in the resulting unrest and instability.

The stewardship presented in Scripture is largely
antithetical to the Middle Class money-values and sensibilities of American
Christianity... even when it's dressed up and packaged as being in accord with
a 'Biblical Worldview'. All too often this is simply a marketing ploy for a
synthesis of man-made and sin-based economic systems with Biblical texts read
out of the New Testament's context in an anti-Christocentric and anti-Kingdom manner.

Faithful Christians do not flourish in the Western context.
Christians who are attempting to follow and live out the commands of Christ and
live by New Testament ethics are already feeling exclusion if not persecution
and have been for a long time.

The Sacralism of the Magisterial Reformation birthed a
prosperity gospel that only falls under condemnation when it is presented in a
crass form and wedded to the sensationalism and false prophetic claims of
Charismatic Christianity. And yet for all its obscenity it is but a consequence
and outworking of Magisterial Protestant Christianity and its sacralisation of
culture. This tradition happily embraced Postmillennialism for only with that
expectation could the overwhelming testimony of the New Testament regarding
This Age be eliminated. The many verses calling us to martyrdom, cross-bearing,
persecution, otherworldliness and poverty could be eliminated and relegated to
an obsolete epoch of Church History.

Today as their project collapses a reactionary theology has
developed that now decries almost any hint of antithesis as smacking of
'dualism'.

In the Middle Ages, Underground Christians were forced into equally
dire straits. Many vocations were closed to them as most of the guilds and official
occupations incorporated Roman Catholic ritual, Mariolatry and other such
corruptions which were contrary to a Biblically informed conscience. Christians
were forced to the margins, sometimes even the forest and the mountains. Those
in the cities and society found solace in becoming weavers and in other
occupations that afforded a degree of independence, not financial independence
but a type of social autonomy. In some cases the Christians came to dominate
regional weaver's guilds and they became shelters for 'heretical' congregations
as well as the movement of their materials and personnel. The time has
certainly come to revisit these historical precedents.

Evangelicalism in the spirit of Rome and the Papacy has
joined with the secular culture in labouring to Sacralise almost every aspect
and facet of society. One cannot attend a sports event without the veneration
of the state, and the Evangelicals love it so and champion such displays of adoration.
Even children's sports and certainly the elementary schools have incorporated
these rituals of veneration for the flag and the 'troops'.

You can scarcely join a club or in many cases work for a
company and you're not forced to wear a flag or drive a vehicle with a flag.
When I get my oil changed I am required to sign the form acknowledging payment
and the checklist of accomplished items. At the bottom there's a blasphemous note
about 'God Bless the Troops' incorporated into the form.

If you have a conscience about these matters, you are
excluded. I refuse to work for churches and aid them in the construction and
repair of their idolatrous temples and yet how often am I confronted with
clients that all but insist I aid them in some kind of veneration of the flag
and troops. They want me to build them something, paint something. It's
unbelievable. I can't escape it. I am vexed by their words and deeds.

Everywhere we are assailed with the cult of bumper stickers
and hats celebrating participation in murderous and criminal wars. I cannot
describe the visceral reaction that stirs within me when I see someone donning
a 'Vietnam Veteran' hat. I've studied too much about that war to not react with
horror and revulsion at the notion that someone would brazenly celebrate their
participation in that almost genocidal debacle.

And then when that same person professes to be a Christian, a
righteous indignation swells within me.

The same is true with regard to both Iraq Wars. Their badge
of honour, is in reality shame and a proclamation that they are all too happy
to participate in lies and murder... they are men without consciences.

The Christian Church in the United States is perhaps even
more guilty of this syncretism and idolatry than the culture at large.
Desperate to maintain their romantic narratives concerning their blasphemous
pseudo-Zion they are engaged in a frenzy of über-nationalism, an almost frantic
effort to propagandise themselves and those around them. It's reminiscent of
the fanaticism found in totalitarian states.

Increasingly Christians are shut out of the most basic
aspects of society. If your conscience is active the number of available jobs
and social activities is rapidly dwindling. But this has been the case. It's
not something that just recently developed because the state has formally
embraced sodomy. That was but the logical and spiritual consequence of the
course this nation has been on for several generations.

Some will say patronisingly... ah, a weaker brother speaks.
His conscience is tender and his scruples handicap him in the real world.

Nay, oh man. The weaker brother in Romans is the one who felt
compelled to maintain Old Covenant ritual and practice, one that had to be
endured out of Christian charity during the era of Covenant overlap and
transition. This passage has been abused by innovators and libertines.

Or in the Corinthian example, the weaker brother would (in
our present socio-political context) be one who is afraid to register a
business with the state or obey its laws out of fear of pagan contamination. It's
becoming all too common. We are called to obey the laws. If you can't, the
answer isn't to run your business illegally. You are called to suffering. It is
only in the realm of the Church that we will completely disregard their laws.
We will not stop worshipping, we will not stop preaching etc...

It is another passage greatly abused by those who promote
Dominion theology. They use it not as a parameter for Christian charity but
instead as a vehicle for license.

Ironically it is on this point of conformity that so many
Churches out of a desire for respectability and in many cases greed are happy
to capitulate to the state, register and allow civil law to influence and
dictate ecclesiastical polity. Take your personal tax subsidy but the Church
should never register with the state, tax breaks or no. Doing so allows the
state a voice in the operations of the Church.

I am not establishing some kind of legalist parameter for
what Christians can or cannot do. I'm simply identifying the fact that there is
a parameter and it has been all but missed by the adherents of the dominant
Sacralist theology. Individuals must work out these things for themselves.
These are issues of conscience. The Church can assist but largely even the
elders of local congregations cannot issue mandates when it comes to some of
these decisions. But instead of guidance the corrupt leaders of the Church are
quick to affirm the world and worldly employments... all the more if it
generates wealth.

Whether you can in clear conscience work for this or that
company or be engaged in this or that industry is your decision. But what I
lament is that I rarely encounter anyone who has even wrestled with the issue.

Why would they? The leaders of Evangelicalism decry the
non-Christian worldview of their congregants, the lack of zeal and the failure
to be salt and light. Their outrage is itself outrageous. For a generation now
they have vigorously taught a world-affirming theology that demands every
aspect and field within society must be engaged and transformed. Everyone must
go out and swim in the sewer in order to clean it up. And now everyone is
tainted by the smell of the world's filth. They live it, eat it, breathe it and
regurgitate it.

You cannot survive and flourish in the world without
embracing its values, ethos, ethics and vision. The world has not been
transformed but the Church has. The Church has taught them to offer incense to
Caesar, to bow to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar... just do it with a 'Biblical'
worldview.

It's okay if you put a cross on the incense burner and atop
the idolatrous statue. This signifies the transformation of these elements and
appropriates them to the cause of Christ, or so we're told.

They're only fooling themselves. The cause if not the 'Christ'
they serve are counterfeits.